


Hold Your Color

by swaddledog



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alien Invasion, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animorphs - Freeform, Blood and Violence, F/M, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, POV Multiple, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Science Fiction, it basically just uses the aliens from that series, it's kind of a crossover?, pairings are eventual, you don't need to be familiar with it to read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2018-12-26 07:18:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12054033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaddledog/pseuds/swaddledog
Summary: Aliens are invading...again. That's what Steve, Natasha, and Clint's coworker from SHIELD apparently believes. At first a little skeptical, the trio agrees to give him a shot at providing proof. Only that proof might involve a terrifying link to Natasha's past, and eventually Steve's, too. Is Steve ready to fight a battle for the fate of humanity when the enemy waging it wears his best friend's face? Is Natasha prepared to confront her past to safeguard her-and the entire planet's-future? Is Brock Rumlow ready to be crushed by the dramatic irony of being subject to mind control by the very person he'd tacitly allowed to suffer that same fate for decades? And is Clint really doing this again because aliens are kind of old news now and he thought they'd have atleastmoved on to robots or zombies by now?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I wanted to clarify one more time in case it was missed in the tags-this IS basically an animorphs crossover or fusion or whatever, but only in the sense that it takes the framework of the alien invasion and the alien species and applies it to MCU characters instead. So none of them are morphing or anything like that. And I didn't exactly *plan* to include any animorphs characters at any point(other than maybe as some passing reference or something) but if there is enough interest I'll consider writing them in :)
> 
> You don't need to know anything about animorphs to read this, it's all explained within the story.

My name is Brock and I'm running for my God damned life. Maybe. I guess if I get caught, I'm not going to die. I'm too valuable to the people-the things-trying to catch me. Not just a healthy, viable body, but combat capable. Extremely capable. That isn't my ego talking either. You don't claw your way to a command position in one of the most secretive, tight-knit blackest-of-black-ops outfits in America without being good at what you do.  
  
I don't know if it's fortunate or not, because on the one hand, it means they don't want me dead. They want my strengths because they can make it their strengths. That's the other hand-I wouldn't be dead, but I wouldn't be me.  
  
You could've told me years in advanced. Warned me with the most official means available to you, and I still wouldn't believe it. I'm one of those stubborn assholes, you know? Knows it all, seen it all, and my personal favorite, _it can't happen to me_. But for something like this, could you really blame me? Could you really fault somebody for not taking your word for it if you told 'em aliens were stealing people and living in their brains and using them like puppets? We all knew about what went on in New York. There was solid proof that aliens existed. So maybe that wasn't the part I'd had trouble with so much as the 'brain-infesting' part.  
  
Now I knew better. But fat lot of good it's doing me. I knew this new, weirder variety of alien was here, that they could be anywhere and I had no way of telling apart them from a normal, uninfected person. I knew some of them, yeah. The ones I'd worked alongside when they'd put the alien bug in my head. They'd taken the rest of my STRIKE unit. A good chunk of R &D, SHIELD and HYDRA. Doctors, technicians, engineers, agents, even the desk jockeys. They had Pierce. The asset.  
  
Shame tried its damndest to wash over me at the thought but as I said, I'm a stubborn asshole. I wasn't going to experience something that foreign without a fight. But it was a hell of a fight. You ever heard about karma? Reaping what you sow and all that bullshit?  
  
Well I'm reaping. I'm buried in this hubris, okay? I'd like it to stop now, even if I'm trying my hardest to refuse to admit I deserve this. Me and all the rest of us that used him. Because now? Now he's not our weapon anymore. Now the same way we used him, the same we we toyed with his brain and made him do what we wanted? They're doing it to us.  
  
I think about him. What he was like on our team. We were like an old fashioned hunting party and he was the hound. So sure and certain out in the field. A predator in action. Deadly, swift, confident. But soon as he came back home, he knew who his real masters were. He knew his place wasn't at the table. Yeah, dog was about as apt as it got without calling him what he was outright-a slave. Even had those big blue puppy dog eyes that turned so sad and confused when he didn't understand why he couldn't sort through and rationalize the lies he'd been fed once his neurons started knitting themselves back together.  
  
I think about him again. What he's like as one of their generals. That's the closest approximation of his rank that I can give. They call him a 'visser'. Whatever it is, it's high up, because the bug in my brain had been terrified of him. I was, too, because I'd seen first hand what he was capable of. Only, that violence hadn't ever been directed towards me. I'd been the one with the leash. But once they'd put the bug in his head? Now I was the rabbit. There was no telling what it'd make him do. He put more than one of us in casts and stitches when we 'disappointed' him, though it seemed more like a lottery than a conclusion based in any kind of reality. That wasn't a powerball you wanted to win, either. Trust me. Maybe these bugs could be just as fucked in the head as the rest of us. I couldn't be sure. The one in my head despised the one controlling the asset, but it was afraid enough to remain subservient.  
  
Maybe that's what the asset had thought of us, before all this.  
  
I spent a lot of time trying not to think about shit like that. I focused on getting out. Trying hard to keep whatever tiny parts of me I could to myself. But it was kind of an impossibility, when the thing you're trying to keep secrets from lives in your fucking skull. You'd better believe it taunted me about that, too. That was its MO, to break down your will. Even though it could control your every move, it was still easier on it if you just let it steamroll you. Too bad for it, I was a pretty tough individual. I kept it together, but did my best to keep quiet about it. The less reason it had to rifle through my brain, the better. Not just for privacy's sake. If I didn't fight and just let it do what it wanted, it wouldn't expect much resistance from me. Surprise is more valuable than people might realize. So I kept looking for openings, for outs. No one was perfect, not even aliens, I figured. Somebody would make a mistake eventually, and I needed to be alert enough to exploit it.  
  
And you bet your ass I did.  
  
These things, they aren't able to live without a specific type of radiation. A kind of radiation that they leave your head to go and absorb from these ugly, scummy ponds that look like they're full of molten lead. They do it every three days, like clockwork. Sometimes I wondered how they kept the Soldier subdued during these periods. They were prepared to cage up normal people with normal strengths, like me. But a guy who can bend steel with his bare hands? What'd they have laying around for him?  
  
Or maybe the asset just thought this was part of the job. Some new, more exact type of HYDRA control. Truth be told, I have no idea what the asset's inner world is like. I never gave it much thought til it was my brain being manipulated.  
  
They take us down underground for the recharge. You get marched to the ugly lake with an escort of these tall, ugly, lizard aliens with sharp blades jutting out of their extremities. Another species that was taken over by these bugs. They take you out on a short pier. The thing-the Yeerk, they call themselves-drops out of your ear. and you get a couple of hours to be you again. Granted, those hours are spent in a literal cage, like an animal. But at least you're you.  
  
Me and STRIKE cycle out at different times. They were smart enough to keep us apart, because God knows if we'd been able to put our heads together, we could've worked something out a lot quicker. I'd seen Pierce down here once. I don't know when he got taken, but once they had the asset, it was only a matter of time before they had the rest of us. What we were doing to SHIELD, they were doing to us, basically. Then from there...everyone on the planet.  
  
Pierce's bug is a lieutenant. It reports to the asset. Which would be fucking hilarious if I'd just heard about it instead of having to live it. To see Pierce, who used to bitchslap the asset for breathing the wrong way, unable to even meet the Soldier's eyes was so viscerally _wrong_ that I almost felt sick when I saw it. He'd start off with squared shoulders and it was like he'd slowly start shrinking the longer he had to stay in the asset's presence.  
  
I'd lost track of how long I'd been one of them. Months. Maybe over a year. And you know how I finally got free?  
  
A piece of tape. Some little discarded half-loop of scotch tape that someone had carelessly dropped or fell from something onto the tile floor in a hallway of the Triskelion. Something innocuous enough that the bug never noticed it or thought of how it could be used to keep a door from latching shut. I prayed my ass off that it hadn't lost all its adhesive and contrary to what even I would've guessed, someone must've been listening to me because it stuck to the sole of my boot. It took a few three day cycles before I was wearing the right shoes underground. The first time I was in sneakers, fresh from a run. The bugs had to keep us in shape, otherwise it might effect their rank. If I wasn't combat ready, I was nothing. I wasn't some politician, or somebody with a lot of money or influence. I was a soldier, and they knew that.   
  
The second time I wasn't in my boots either. I was off duty for a couple of days and had no reason to be wearing them around. Third time was it. My boots were on. The bug was headed down. I was ready. I'd pretended to stumble once the bug had left my head. While a pair of the lizard aliens tried to jerk me back to my feet, I palmed the tape off the bottom of my shoe. I made the fuckers drag me to my cage. I clutched in a not-so-fake desperation, searching with my hands and-  
  
And the tape, dirtied with grit and dust and lint and sand, managed to stick somehow. I held the bars tight as the green alien shoved it shut, keeping the door in place so it wouldn't bounce back open and reveal it wasn't secure. I slung curses at it to make the whole scene a little more authentic, but it trailed off like it hadn't even heard. Just another day in the nightmare factory.  
  
I bided my time. I won't pretend I didn't want to bolt as soon as the lizard-men's backs were turned. But I had to be rational here or I'd fuck it all up. Another different type of alien patrolled my block. It was something even uglier than the lizards-a giant millipede looking thing, except it had an enormous mouth full of teeth and it ate anything that moved, given the opportunity. The lines of people and other aliens heading down to dump their bugs seemed to never end. Another line was made up of people being dragged kicking and screaming to a different pier so the Yeerk could be put back in their head. I don't know how the bugs knew which person was theirs. Every time I'd been down here, there'd been a scene in that line. Someone lost their grip on their prisoner and they fell face first. Or somebody spat just the right way into their captor's eye. Or kicked just the right place. That kind of thing. So I waited. It was probably the worst hour or so of my life. It was hard to fight the urge to run when the opportunity was there, but if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.  
  
Then he showed up and my stomach felt suddenly empty. It'd gotten hard to swallow. He was being trailed by a mixed group. Mostly humans. Some of the lizard aliens, Hork-Bajir. He was barking out demands. Even after all this time it was surreal seeing the asset speak like that. Angrily. Confidently. Loudly, not all quiet and subdued and waiting to be struck for vocalizing something other than a confirmation of an order or a request for a certain type of gun. I strained to listen. Any information I could get was valuable, especially if I made it out of here.  
  
"...not going to look like that blue _idiot_ on the west coast, letting some band of _stragglers_ jeopardize this entire operation."  
  
One of the tall green aliens said something in a mix of English and what I figure must be its native language. The group laughed. The Soldier watched them, smiling, but it seemed fake. He was amused, but not by whatever they were laughing at. He laughed suddenly, overly loud. The others seemed to cotton onto the fact that he was mocking them. "Yes, that _would_ be entertaining, wouldn't it?" he said as they went quiet. The tension rose and then-  
  
He swung, hard, catching the thing that was a full foot taller than him just under the corners of its jaw. He squeezed that leathery green neck, metal arm gleaming in the artificial lighting of the cavern. He jerked the thing down, locking eyes with it. Everyone went still. Even some of the people at the piers seemed to be slowing their progress to watch what happened next. My heart thudded and I had to wonder if this was it. Was this the window I'd been hoping for? But how? I couldn't outrun the Soldier, I knew that for a fact. If he noticed me walking out of this cage...  
  
He glared, crazed, into the red eyes of the other alien. It didn't dare move, but even I could read how petrified the thing was in the way it stiffened. "But, do you know what _wouldn't_ be entertaining?" the Soldier asked. A sick, guttural noise escaped the Hork-Bajir. Something thick and dark green leaked out of its beaked mouth. "If he fails, _I_ fail. And if I fail?"  
  
He jerked his arm suddenly and look, I've seen a lot of shit in my time. Been the _cause_ of a lot of shit. But I'd never watched someone practically behead an alien with his bare hands. The Soldier ripped the thing's jaw clean off from one corner to the other. Green blood gushed out as the thing toppled. "All of you _die_ with _me!"_ the Soldier all but snarled at them. I wasn't so sure he could back up that threat. But it didn't matter. I was getting out of here.  
  
"Clean this thing up," he snapped, gesturing at the still breathing Hork-Bajir. It made a wet, almost whistling noise as it tried to suck in breaths through an airway that had to be clogging with its own blood by now. The Soldier strode away, his underlings trailing at a safer distance as they tried to touch on some other topic. Something that wouldn't end in losing a body part.  
  
The millipede thing-a Taxxon-patrolling my block suddenly screeched and I thought my stomach was going to drop out of my ass, certain it'd noticed I wasn't locked in. But then it rushed for the free-for-all going on near the piers. The giant millipede monsters were swarming the still writhing Hork-Bajir, eating it alive. What a fucking way to go.  
  
I glanced at them. Just about everyone was. The Soldier and his group were moving on, their backs to me. They were still between me and the nearest set of stairs out of here. But if they kept going at the clip they were, they'd be clear by the time I got there.  
  
I pushed my cell door open. I kept my eyes everywhere at once. All the Taxxon guards were too busy chowing down to patrol the cells. Escapes weren't common at all, so maybe they'd gotten complacent after all this time. The Hork-Bajir were busy trying to redirect the line of prisoners away from the grisly buffet, and trying to deal with the fact that the average human's stomach wasn't all that tolerant of a scene like that. A few people were getting sick.  
  
I was out. I yanked off the tape. If I was caught, I didn't want them figuring out how I did it. Hell, even if I did make it out, I didn't want them to know. If I cleared the next row of cages without being noticed, I was golden. I could walk out of here calmly. I was just another poor sap with a bug in my head to them. They had no way of knowing I wasn't infested right now. There was so much screaming and noise here, none of the guards heard the few assholes who were trying to give me up for my escape attempt from their own cages. I wasn't going to pretend I was altruistic enough to compromise my one chance at freedom by trying to open anyone else's cell, even if it could provide an additional distraction.  
  
I kept my focus on any quick movement. Behind me were just rows of prisoners and distracted guards. Ahead, beyond the row of cages I was pressed against, there were people and aliens milling around freely. They held casual meetings here. Planned new ways to strengthen their numbers. This invasion wasn't the kind of thing the movies make you expect. They preferred this secretive, insidious approach to something that would consume even more resources. Should it ever come to it, me and the other people who were taken for their combat skills would be the boots on the ground for an all out, full-scale invasion. No more covert ops shit. And humanity couldn't afford a war like that, either.  
  
Squaring my shoulders and striding purposefully, I pushed my way through the crowd. Some were trying to get a better look at what had gone on that caused such a stir. Others seemed uninterested. I overheard snippets of conversation that were casual enough to fit in at any office. Gossip about kiss-ass aliens vying for promotions. Stuff about how annoying their host body was. Which type of alien body they liked possessing best. News from places I'd never heard of. Other planets, presumably. Shit got deep, fast, once you were one of them. I'd never thought much about space, or what was out there and what wasn't. But now I knew enough and I wish I could give it all back just to ensure my own freedom.  
  
I didn't meet anyone's line of sight, but I didn't try to look like I was purposefully avoiding that either. I had to keep calm, and just keep aiming for the stairs. I was one random guy. There was a lot more going on here than me. No way they'd take an interest. No way any of them would know I was supposed to be back there in a cage. No way to fuck it up unless I-  
  
"Efrin 297."  
  
God hated me after all.  
  
I didn't hesitate. I turned to face the Soldier, trying to project the appropriate amount of subservience into my face. Efrin 297 was the name of the Yeerk they put in my head. They split apart to reproduce. So the numbers attached to their name have something to do with that. "Visser Seven," I made myself say even if I wanted to be screaming at the Soldier to put up a God damned fight already and break its hold. Visser Seven wasn't the name of the Soldier's bug, but its rank. I was just some underling. I wasn't authorized to call him by his name, whatever it was.   
  
He looked over his shoulder. Someone was there, gleefully waiting to be noticed, to be made useful. Their face fell when the Soldier snapped at him to leave. He pulled me closer with his left arm. The bug, Visser Seven, liked that arm. That and the Soldier's enhanced physiology, not to mention how lethal he was, all culminated in him being very important to these bugs in their invasion scheme. I walked with him. Towards the stairs. The way he'd been heading before, but he must've noticed me in the crowd when glancing back over his shoulder at some point. His voice was low when he spoke. "I trust you recall our arrangement?"  
  
Arrangement. Right. Efrin 297 was being held responsible for ensuring the recruitment and infestation of another pair of coveted hosts. Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. They were both SHIELD. Even if Romanoff was shifty as all hell, I knew she wasn't HYDRA. She'd been part of a STRIKE team with Clint Barton and a few other agents. But two of those agents had died, the third had been handed off to me, and the pair had been reassigned. They were Avengers. Something a little more elite than STRIKE. Just a little.  
  
They were two valuable, combat ready bodies. That seemed to be Visser Seven's game, to collect as much firepower as he could. Maybe it was a smart move to assume things weren't going to stay secret forever. Or maybe the Yeerk in the Soldier's head could only look at humanity through the lense of his host, who had a very, very limited insight into society at large. Was he strategizing the Yeerk way, or the only way his host knew how?  
  
He was also pretty power-hungry. And that was going to be a boon for us, as a species. "Of course, sir," I answered. I couldn't get over how wrong it felt to be deferring to the Soldier. But if the bug was in my head, controlling everything I did, that's how it would speak to Visser Seven.  
  
He hardly seemed to notice though. His superiority was a simple fact to him. Water is wet, sky is blue. "Remember, we can use them to get to Stark, but Banner and Rogers need to be destroyed."  
  
_That wasn't what you_ _said to your bosses_ _,_ I thought. Of course I didn't say it though. This was where his greed came in. On the surface, to his higher-ups, he'd offered what was a brilliant tactical move. Nab these six high profile, valuable hosts, use their strength and influence to solidify your stranglehold on the species. But beneath the surface? Well, beneath, he didn't want his position as a general threatened. Sure, the Soldier was stronger and more durable than the average person, with sharper senses, increased stamina, and dozens of other impressive attributes. But how impressive was he compared to Captain America? To the fucking Hulk? Whichever Yeerks got those bodies were going to immediately be bumped up, which meant the Soldier would be bumped _down._ And he wasn't willing to let that happen.  
  
"Yes, sir," I answered immediately. "Once the three of them are successfully recruited, we'll take care of the-" I hesitated, looking for a word one of these bugs would use. "...undesirables." They didn't throw around the word 'assholes' or 'bastards' as much as I did, so a little self-censoring was called for.  
  
"And what will it look like?" he demanded, watching the crowds now instead of me. It didn't make sense to go to the trouble of self-sabotage if you were going to be ratted out by someone who overheard your plan on the way to the cafeteria.  
  
"An accident, sir," I responded. Because politics were the same, no matter what galaxy you were from, apparently. Self-preservation is a necessary instinct for the survival of a species, wherever it evolved.  
  
"Success is to be met with reward. Something that reflects appropriately what you risk." I wanted to puke on his already bloody combat boots, just out of spite. His voice froze over suddenly, and he looked me dead in the eye. I wondered if the Soldier was behind them still. Was he screaming and fighting, like so many others did? Or had he quickly resigned to being somebody else's puppet, the only kind of life he'd ever known? "Don't make me remind you what incompetence is met with."  
  
I swallowed. Even if I was planning to be long gone by the time his little plan was set in motion, I couldn't help but feel that threat in the pit of my stomach. And I knew how easy it was for the Soldier to kill a man. "Yes, sir," I answered. He left me without another word. I did my best to not look like I was obviously tracking his departure with my eyes, but I guess it wouldn't have been so out of character if I did. If you feared something, you kept watch on it.  
  
I gave him time to put some distance between him and the stairs. Some of the bug-infested people and aliens around me seemed to want to approach me, to get the down low on what'd been discussed. Maybe some of them were worried it was about them. Ultimately, none of them actually came over. Too afraid, I guess.  
  
So I moved. No one ever sent up an alarm over the missing host. Probably they didn't even realize I was missing yet anyway. They moved so many bodies through here, they were bound to lose track, so used to everything running smoothly that they weren't terribly concerned with escapes. Anyone who got out and made a big stink about an alien invasion would be written off as crazy by the general public, and would quickly be scooped back up by these guys. Not that it happened much, if at all. I wasn't ready to jinx myself by claiming I was the first to make it out. They wouldn't be alerted until it was time for my bug to come out of the pool only to find he had no body to get back to. And then...  
  
I tried not to think about 'then' yet. I climbed the stairs without urgency. Couldn't risk looking like I was running from something. I'd made it this far without rushing, I could make it the rest of the way.  
  
The stairway took me to a basement. It looked like a large storage area. I saw some broken desks and realized it was a school. Paths down to the pool were hidden all over the place. I couldn't name all of them. If some poor soul happened to wander down there, they wouldn't be wandering back out. Keeping my breathing even, I climbed another set of stairs to get up to the ground floor. The hallway was dark, lit only by a handful of emergency lights. It was too late in the night for anyone to be here.  
  
This wasn't where I'd come in. But the underground structure went on for miles. Wherever I was, I couldn't be stuck here for long. I had to put as much distance between myself and this place as possible. I needed-  
  
I needed somebody to watch my back. But I had no way of knowing who I could trust. My entire team had a Yeerk in their head. Most of the people I knew did, since I worked with them. They could be cops, government officials, anybody, and I had no way of knowing.  
  
Except...  
  
Fuck.  
  
I pinched the bridge of my nose as I walked down the street, following the flow of traffic. What little there was. I didn't want to contact them with this bullshit because they'd never believe me. But the only people I knew for sure were safe to approach were the fucking Avengers.  
  


 


	2. Chapter 2

My name is whatever I want it to be. Currently, I want it to be Natasha. It isn't the only name I have, and it won't be the last one I go by. For now, that's what it is.   
  
My world is one that refuses to include the concept of 'impossibilities'. It isn't because I have lofty dreams, or whimsical expectations. It is because things are simply easier if I don't have to fight through doubt and incredulity at every turn. Don't take me as gullible. I like to think I'm pretty good at seeing through lies and manipulation.

  
It's just that, my life has gotten increasingly weird since the day I was born. If you plotted my existence on a chart where the x-axis was my age and the y-axis 'weirdness', the line would steadily rise the further to the right it went. A large slash across the page. You'd think it couldn't go up once you started off as a child soldier brainwashed into devoting themselves to the ideals of their mother country. But it did.   
  
And the early morning text I received from Clint only made certain the slope of my life's graph would continue its steady increase. _You know that Jersey Shore motherfucker from work?  
  
_ I sighed at first. I really hoped he had bothered me at four thirty in the morning for something more than a conversation about Brock Rumlow. _What about him?_ I asked anyway. As I said, it was four thirty in the morning. I didn't exactly have anything better to do.   
  
After New York, I'd gone from baby-sitting Tony Stark to baby-sitting Captain America. I'm not sure what it says about my workplace that they chose me for this assignment. Is it patronizing? I'm a competent agent, but I'm saddled twice in a row with watching over two different grown men. However, those grown men have been a) geniuses with illegal, wearable weapons of mass destruction, and b) a man who could throw me head-first through a brick wall without breaking a sweat over it. So I'm still debating Clint over whether or not I should be offended or flattered when I get asked to supervise what may be some of the most stubborn, dangerous men on the planet, whether they mean to be or not.   
  
Lately, my days consist of acclimating Steve Rogers to life as a SHIELD agent. Baby steps. He's not daunted by all the technology of the future. He picks it up quick, contrary to what Tony wants everyone else to think. It's the customs he has trouble with. We've been having lunch time chats about how social norms have changed since the forties. He seems pleased by a lot of things, like women's lib, civil rights, things like that. In spite of that, he still gets irritated with people who curse in front of women, has a hard time with how underdressed people are on airplanes, and isn't sure if he should avert his eyes when there's a sex scene in a movie or TV show.   
  
In short, it's a work in progress.   
  
Clint messaged me back. _We need to have a chat.  
  
_ I responded, _I don't care about his hair._ At about the same time, Clint tried to pre-empt me, _It's not about his hair.  
  
_ I stretched and rolled out of the bed I hadn't actually been doing much sleeping in. I slept. I really did. But it came in fits. I could sleep normally for a few months. Then barely get anything for a week straight. I guess this was the week straight.   
_  
It's weird shit. Wanna talk in person. Bring your two hundred fifty pound gorilla baby if you want. Concerns him too.  
  
_ The two hundred fifty pound gorilla baby, if you hadn't guessed, was Steve. Because he weighed a lot, being a six foot four supersoldier, and he was strong, like a gorilla. Clint wasn't as creative as Tony, but he tried.   
  
_Okay. It's early still. I don't want to bother him.  
  
_ It wasn't entirely a lie. I didn't want to bother him in the early hours of the morning. Something no one seemed to give much thought to was that everyone and everything Steve knew and loved was dead. As in, not just people, but his entire way of life. Like, instantly. I think that's a difficult idea for most people to process. Tony and Clint picked at him for being uptight when we all first met. But for Steve, it'd been barely a few weeks since he'd decided to kill himself in a blaze of glory only to find out it didn't work. To find out he'd survived, but no one else did, essentially. His home had changed so much he didn't want to live there anymore. The last link he had to his way of life, his own past, was Peggy Carter, and her mind was rapidly decaying, as if the universe were trying to mock Steve at every turn. Maybe, I thought, it was a little understandable if he was irritable or "uptight" sometimes.   
  
I could never be sure, though. As I said, my life has been weird. Maybe I don't know enough about how grief works for normal people to be a good judge of these things. Death and loss have been a part of my way of life for as long as I can remember. It was a rule for me and the other girls to never become attached to anyone or anything, because we were made to understand it could be gone in an instant. These were terrible lessons. Of course I know that now. But unlearning them isn't easy, and I find myself second-guessing my thoughts and beliefs more often than the confident exterior might indicate.   
  
My phone buzzed again. _Ugh so you're going to leave me with the Situation for how long?  
  
_ The nerve. _Remember three weeks ago when you stood me up for lunch at the Golden Eggroll because Lucky had eaten a shoelace and you took him to the vet? Remember how at no point did you tell me and I was waiting there for two and a half hours when you finally showed up and told me every detail of the poo shoelace story while I still had lo mein in my mouth?  
  
_ My phone was silent, for a time. I started a morning stretching routine, already irritated with the direction my day was apparently going to take. I didn't hate Brock Rumlow. But I didn't particularly like him either. He was more than competent. A little on the flashy side, but at least he had the skills to match, unlike most people with bloated egos. He could be ruthless if the plan fell through. He'd do anything to complete an objective. And sometimes, that's what I didn't like. Because sometimes, that's what I was like, and I was trying very hard not to be. It was like Clint explained to me. If we throw out our own morals, we were no better than the people we fought against. We had to maintain the distinction, or it was pointless to fight.  
  
But it was so hard sometimes to get over the fact that an objective was an objective for a reason. If you wanted to meet a goal, you should do anything you could to achieve it. Morals, to me, were sometimes like a vanity. Pride. The goal was everything. Pride was temporary. Was it really worth it, to risk everything just for that pride?  
  
I understood it wasn't that simple. Brainwashing relies on you seeing things as simple, though. Simple thoughts stick, where complex ones can get snagged and unravel.   
  
I looked at my phone. Clint had replied. _Fine. Look, have that revenge, it's yours. But please, I don't want to hear anything about cap's ninety year old man raisin bran BM okay?  
  
_ An eye for an eye. _I make no promises._ I didn't plan on asking Steve something so gross and personal, of course, and he wasn't about to volunteer that kind of information with some prodding because he wasn't twelve years old. But if anyone could get such information out of him, it'd be me, so I let the threat marinate with Clint for the next few hours, ignoring his accusatory, suspicious texts. After all, I'd never asked to be told about his dog shitting out a shoe string.  
  
I tried not to let myself wonder too much about why Brock would be trying to meet up with us. What would drive him to contact Clint, of all people, and so early in the morning? If there was some kind of emergency at the Triskelion, I would have been notified somehow or another.   
  
Unless this _was_ the somehow or another.   
  
I put more of my focus into my morning routine. Exercise. Shower. Breakfast. Reviewing messages from people other than a man whose best friend is a dog that eats pizza. I half-expected the latter to have something relating to Brock's sudden and apparently urgent need to meet with us, but there was nothing that tipped me off. Just a notification of routine IT maintenance. A couple e-mails about some procedural errors made in someone's reports. Nothing out of the ordinary.   
  
It was closing in on seven-thirty when I finished with everything. I finally messaged Steve. He was guarded in some ways, not in others. Questions deemed too personal, like things that might give some indication of his mental state, were carefully and politely answered. But he could be very obvious with how he felt about things. Or maybe I was just too good at looking. His poker face was the same for everything: gritted molars, the muscles of his jaw bunching, slightly flaring nostrils. If he felt embarrassed, or found out, he looked down and away from whoever made him uncomfortable, not whoever was speaking to him. If he felt challenged but unconfident, he'd still make sure to maintain eye contact, almost obsessively so. If he felt flustered, his eyes flicked back and forth between whoever was speaking and whoever else was in the room. And that was just what his face gave away.  
  
I wasn't sure how well he slept, is all I meant. His enhanced biology meant signs of fatigue were harder to spot. He didn't easily get the dark circles under his eyes. If he did have restless nights, he could have them more often than the average person without it showing in his face or behavior. The earliest I ever contacted him outside of a work-related setting was nine in the morning. I tended towards not intruding, when I could, but it was a habit.   
  
That made it a little telling that he answered my question of when we could meet fairly quickly. _Whenever. What's going on?  
  
_ So he wasn't all that oblivious. It struck him as odd that I'd contacted him this early. The next step was teaching him how to probe that oddity without being quite so obvious. He'd get there, one day. _Want to get breakfast with Brock, Clint, and I?_ I'd already eaten. I was sure Clint would eat if food were made available to him. And I was sure Steve would do the same, but only to satisfy his absurd metabolism, so at least he had an excuse.   
  
_Brock...which one is he again?  
  
_ The words 'Jersey Shore' meant nothing to Steve so I lost that easy option. _Commands STRIKE. He met with you a couple weeks ago to discuss possibly adding you and me to their ranks, since things have settled down after NYC._ I was still on the fence about it. Clint and I had been on a team with some others. That didn't turn out so well. Once we became Avengers, there was some restructuring with the STRIKE teams. And again when Steve announced his interest in joining the organization his friends Peggy and Howard had founded. We weren't sure how things were going to proceed, and everyone was still busy having 'discussions'. Steve was, essentially, a new hire. New hires didn't get thrown on a STRIKE team and trusted with the most sensitive information an intelligence agency has. But they'd be stupid to ignore his potential.   
  
_Right,_ came the response about five minutes later. _What do you wear to something like that? Does this count as work or...?  
  
_ I smiled a fond little smile. The more I got to know Steve, the more I liked him. He was a very genuine person, like Clint. They were pretty hard to find. _Casual. Whatever you feel comfortable in. Ties are for interviews and weddings._ I'd foolishly written funerals as a third option but thought better of it. He didn't need the reminder.  
  
 _Okay, thanks._ I waited a beat before putting my phone down. _Makes sense, it's just you're all coworkers so I wasn't sure._ Another beat. _Still getting the hang of certain things._ Beat. _It's like a whole different culture sometimes._ I waited a little longer and nothing more came. Tony liked making bets on frivolous things like this and I'd earned twenty dollars from him. Most people were certain Steve would write his texts like a letter, giving big, detailed messages and signing off with a 'sincerely, Steve Rogers'. I was apparently one of the only people who thought he'd treat it like he did. He typed exactly like he spoke.

 

I responded to his last message about it being like another culture. _That's because it is._ I added a smiling emoji so he wouldn't misinterpret my tone as irritated.   
  
Within another half hour, we were all together at the table of a Steak'n'Shake, of all places. Clint threatened Waffle House, and this was the best I could push back with. Clint apparently thought of milkshakes as all day meals. Steve briefly studied the menu, brows drawn together as he mouthed the word 'panwich' in either confusion or disgust. Maybe it was both. Brock seemed like he didn't care about any of it. His eyes were everywhere else-the cooks, the waitress who came to take an order, the only other people in this awful restaurant so early in the morning.   
  
I didn't like the idea that he'd dragged us all into some danger without at least informing us of it first, so I cut to the chase. "Who are you hiding from?"  
  
His eyes settled on me immediately and he snorted, as if admonishing himself for not recognizing sooner that I'd see through him. Steve looked concerned. Clint took it in stride, mumbling to himself that he should've gotten the milkshake with the Butterfinger pieces instead. "It's complicated," Brock answered, settling back in his chair and crossing his arms. That was alarming. He was not an arm-crossing individual. He was never on the defensive. He was too confident and self-assured to feel that uncomfortable because of a conversation. So whoever was after him was more than he could handle, and that was definitely something worth being alarmed about.   
  
"We've fought aliens in Manhattan. Try us," Steve said. He sounded like he still didn't believe it, in spite of having been there in the thick of the first intergalactic war in human history.   
  
One thing to be said in Brock's favor was that he didn't beat around the bush. He was a very direct person. "Alright. It's aliens."   
  
Clint laughed a little, as if to a joke only he had heard. "Yeah. Why not?"  
  
"Are you being serious?" Steve asked.   
  
Brock nodded, maintaining eye contact. "Not like the ones you guys were up against in New York. Not like your buddy with the hammer, either. They're..." He sighed heavily, spreading his hands before letting them drop palm-down on the table again. It was plain he was struggling with how to tell us about this, whatever it was. I still wasn't one-hundred percent sure he wasn't just having a mental breakdown. It was an unfortunate reality that our line of work was highly stressful, and not everyone made it to retirement with their mind in tact. We were required to meet with psychologists on a regular basis, but those only worked if you let them, and not everyone did.   
  
He laughed suddenly, fixated with his hands. He moved them again, edges of his palms still resting on the table. He flexed his fingers before curling them into loose fists. "I didn't think about it," he said. "It's...it's been awhile. Since I could move my own hands. My brain and my body haven't been talking much lately."  
  
Definitely inching towards the break down conclusion.   
  
Steve narrowed his eyes. "What are you trying to say?"  
  
Brock shook his head, like he was ridding himself of one train of thought to get back to another. "These things, the aliens. They aren't bipedal, like us, or the Chitauri. They aren't even all that big. They're like...little slugs. Snails without shells or something. Small."  
  
Clint slowly slid the salt shaker towards Brock, eyebrows raising as he did so.

 

"Cute," Brock said, pushing it back. "But they aren't satisfied with being small. They're like parasites. Some kind of infection. They get into your head through your ear and wrap themselves around your brain. Melt into all the little wrinkles and shit. Make you into their puppet. You don't move. They move you. You don't blink. You don't even breathe without their go-ahead. It's the purest, most direct kind of mind control you can think of."  
  
"You sure about that?" I asked dryly, not missing the way Clint's eyes darkened. He had a particular reason to dislike the notion of mind control. So did I. Different reasons, but similar enough for us to be in the same boat.  
  
Brock glanced at me, and shrugged. He knew about what happened to Clint. Some people in SHIELD never forgave him for those he'd killed under Loki's thrall. Others understood. I don't know which camp Brock fell into, but I thought it must have been closer to the latter, as he'd never expressed any kind of hatred or even mild dislike for Clint. And I kept an eye out for things like that. He leaned forward suddenly to draw a hand over his face. "I don't know what the fuck I'm thinking. This sounds insane."  
  
Steve seemed focused on winding the paper wrapping of his straw as tightly as he could. "Maybe a little," he said. He lifted his eyes from the paper to look at Brock. "But if there's been one alien invasion, why should I hesitate to believe there might be another?"  
  
It was a fair point. We couldn't dismiss Brock outright when we knew firsthand that we weren't alone in the universe. Even if it seemed pretty far-fetched that a species like he described could somehow master interstellar travel, or organize an invasion that we should feel threatened by. "Do you have some kind of tangible evidence?" I asked him.   
  
He winced, almost like he was frustrated with himself for something. "No. I was so focused on getting out I didn't think about proof 'til I was gone."  
  
A handful of people filtered into the restaurant, waiting to be seated. Brock sank lower in his chair, leaning a head in his hand as if to shield his face while simultaneously trying to get a glimpse of theirs. All of us followed suit, trying to inconspicuously look over the group. I didn't notice anything alarming about them, other than the fact that they chose to come here for breakfast.   
  
"You can't understand until you've been where I've been," Brock said in a low voice, watching us, already accusing us of not believing him. "They look like anybody else right? They're just normal people here for a meal. But that's what makes this so damn difficult. Any one of them could have the bug in their brain and we couldn't know just by looking at 'em. They have the ability to know everything they want about you, because they're in your head. So they don't slip up. You never get tipped off that they're even there until they have you, too."  
  
It was an alarming threat, of course. I allowed myself to briefly entertain the notion that what he was saying was absolutely the truth. And he seemed to believe it himself. I couldn't sniff out any insincerity, any amusement on his part. People like to think they're very in control of themselves, that only people who suffer mental defects or illnesses are susceptible to perceptual issues. But our brains are fragile things. Easily manipulated, easily controlled. Trusting it can be risky, so trusting others seemed outright dangerous. It was easy to be frightened by the reality that Brock was suggesting.   
  
"How'd you know we were okay to talk to then?" Clint asked.   
  
Here Brock's eyes fell to the table. He wasn't ashamed. That wasn't in his range of emotions, from what I knew of him. But he knew we weren't going to like what he was about to tell us and he needed that brief second to steel his resolve. He looked back up at us with that familiar cockiness in place and he said, "Because they want you three next."  
  
We stayed quiet for a moment, considering what he'd said. The waitress came back with the food and was gone just as quickly. Again, it was hard to know how to react. If Brock was having some kind of breakdown, we needed to get him help, not entertain his delusions further. But if he was being serious, and we ignored this, what were we risking? If this had all occurred before New York, I might have easily brushed off his story as insanity. It was a simple fact now: we were not alone, and others knew where we were. Why should we be so quick to believe that the Chitauri would be the last to try their hand at taking us out?  
  
"Why?" Steve asked first.   
  
Brock snorted at him like it was a riduculous question. "You kidding me? You don't know why some body snatchers wouldn't want the world's only other genetically enhanced supersoldier and a pair of elite spies?"  
  
"Aw, thanks," Clint said before going back to his milkshake.   
  
"What do you mean only other?" I asked before the conversation could take off.  
  
I didn't miss how Brock stiffened, even if he quickly tried to hide it. His hesitation made me pounce again before he could try to walk it back, write the very specific phrasing off as an accident, "You said Steve was the world's only _other_ genetically enhanced supersoldier. Who is the other?" I had an idea. A frightening one. But I had to be sure.   
  
"Classified intelligence," he answered shortly.   
  
"You came to us with some pretty outrageous claims," Steve said in what Clint referred to as his boss-man tone. It was the kind of voice that either bolstered your exhausted will or made you feel shameful about a mistake. "Asking us to trust you. Trust goes both ways. If you can't be completely open with us, how are we supposed to be completely open with you?"  
  
Brock looked ready to curl a lip in annoyance but thought better of it. "Fine. Not like it matters much anymore, half of SHIELD's got these fucking things in their head."  
  
"What?" Steve said sharply and I held up a hand at him.  
  
"Don't get sidetracked. Answer our question," I said, eyes still on Brock. I wasn't going to let him steer the conversation away from something he clearly wanted to hide.   
  
The frustrated look that passed over his face told me that was exactly what he was trying to do. "He's a Soviet era hand me down. Imitation Captain America." I felt my mouth run dry. He couldn't be wound up in this. We couldn't afford that. "Still strong, you know, but not the same as you. And they have him. The bugs." I closed my eyes briefly. I was still uncertain as to whether or not Brock was telling the truth. But if he was, the fight we'd engage in was beginning to seem harder to win.   
  
"How do you know of him?" I asked evenly. I felt Steve's eyes on me, curious. Clint's, concerned.   
  
Brock's were calculating. "Told you. The bugs have him. The one in his head is like a general or something. They call him by his rank, Visser Seven. He oversees the invasion operations for the Eastern coast of the Americas. My bug reported to his."  
  
I felt suddenly sick but refused to show it. I drank some coffee as I thought about what that might mean for us. Nothing good, of course. He's one of the only things I've ever openly admitted to being afraid of. Not afraid of succumbing to, but becoming. A drone. Some thoughtless thing with a singular existence, a singular purpose. Death.   
  
"But listen," Brock said in that low voice again, leaning in towards the table. "He's like a rung at the top of the ladder. We've gotta focus on the bottom ones first. You three, and your Avenger pals? You need to be warned. Stay aware. Stay suspicious. They aren't just gonna barge in and shove shit in your ears, okay? That's not how they get you. They get to the people you trust. The people you love. And they draw you in. And...and you? And Banner?" Here he looked at Steve. "Our buddy Visser Seven here? He wants you two dead. The MO doesn't change much for that."  
  
"Not the first time somebody's wanted me that way," Steve shrugged and I felt a mild concern over the fact that he didn't seem bothered by having to say that. He even laughed a small laugh before continuing, "Hell, it's not even the first time an _alien's_ wanted me dead."  
  
Clint smirked, but it was a sad kind of smirk. He'd been on the side of those aliens, albeit through forces he couldn't hope to defend himself against.   
  
"How did you get away?" I asked Brock. He turned his eyes from Steve to me, as if he'd forgotten I was even there.   
  
"I don't want to share the details, in case any of you gets taken. But every three days, the bugs come out of your head to recharge on some type of solar radiation native to their home solar system. You get locked up in a cage for a couple hours while they soak in their spa. That's when I made my break. And I'll do whatever it takes to not go back. I'm not stupid enough to believe I'll get that lucky twice." There was an inflexible resolve in his eyes then. Something that told me he would sacrifice whatever was necessary to avoid that fate. Including us, I'd bet. Which was saying a lot. Egotistical as he could be, Brock tended to be a team player. He believed in the unit, not the individual. The threat of losing yourself, your autonomy, though, was plenty powerful to change all that. I understood, and I didn't judge him for it. I still don't know if I'd do the same thing, were I in his position. If I'd experienced what he had.   
  
Steve nodded, as if he understood. I liked him, but I didn't think he did.   
  
"Well," Clint said, breaking the tension a little and leaning back in his seat. "I say we invest in earplug futures and cash out. When're we going to have this kind of insider knowledge again?"   
  
Brock snorted and I rolled my eyes.   
  
"Get with it here," Brock said to Clint. "I'm not stupid. I know how all this shit sounds and I know half of you think I'm crazy. What do I have to show I'm not?"  
  
"We need some kind of better evidence," I said. "You understand why we'd hesitate believing a claim like yours, detailed as it is. So show us something that'll make it difficult to deny you."  
  
He drummed his fingers on the table, clearly going over options in his head. I couldn't begin to imagine what they were. "The easiest and most immediate one is also the most risky," he said, apparently more for himself than for us. "The Pool. Where they recharge. Your faces are too recognizable, and they'll be looking for me, so if we go down there, it'll be over like that." He snapped his fingers. He sighed, almost angrily before looking back up at us. "You gotta understand, they didn't make it this far without being secretive as all hell."  
  
"There's got to be something you can give us as proof," Steve said. "An operation as large as you claim has to be leaving some kind of mark somewhere or other that you can show us without risking yourself."  
  
Brock pressed his lips together as he thought. We were quiet, allowing him to try to concentrate. Until Clint started obnoxiously slurping on his straw once he'd reached the end of his milkshake. I looked at him and he was too focused on getting the last of the whip cream at the bottom to notice, so I smacked him. "What?" he all but whined.   
  
"I got it," Brock said suddenly, staring at Clint's empty glass. Then he looked at me. "I'll get you some undeniable proof."

 


End file.
